Art 381

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

I attended the artist talk held by Matt
Kenyon who spoke about his various projects. I thought this artist talk was
definitely interesting. I found Matt to be somewhat of an artist that loved
creating inventions. His work spoke volumes by itself and I thought that was
pretty intense. One of his projects was a self-sustaining plant that would
water itself if and only if the stock market for, I believe, Home Depot was doing
well. I thought that was genius especially because he bought the plant form
Home Depot! Ironic that they sell plants but their stock couldn’t keep the
plants alive. This just showed how many plants were killed by Home Depot alone
due to them buying so much but not being able to provide a proper home for
them.

Another one of Matt’s projects I found
amazing was the scanner project he did. In this particular project he used
himself as a container for the art. He put a scanner in his mouth and would
scan certain things he ate. It was interesting how he had gone out of his way to
get the side of his mouth pierced just so he can create art. I loved the
concept and it showed the deception of those scanner companies that would track
how people ate.

The most impactful piece that Matt created
however would definitely be his ode to civilian casualties in Iraq. The catch
for this piece was that it was a secret memorial to these poor civilians that government
could care less about. It truly made and impact especially when he showed us
about 3 or so pages front and back of names of those killed. How he did that
you ask? By creating the lines used to write sentences as the template for the
names. Such tiny names and you look at these pages and wonder how many lives were
sacrificed, uncared for, and recklessly taken for a war that make no sense. How
epic this piece spoke to me and it made me feel like writing a letter to the
government on the same exact paper then asking them to take a microscope to
read aloud the names they didn’t care or know about.

Matt is a creative artist and that’s
what I enjoyed most about his artist lecture. I hope he continues to speak
volumes through his work and continue to impact the world about their senselessness.

I attended the artist talk for the Optical
Illusions work by Dr. Gideon Caplovitz. I found this particular artist talk to be
quite an interesting one. Also it was difficult paying attention to what the
Dr. was presenting for my eyes are a bit sensitive to light and color. His
whole presentation played upon the eyes and how it reacted to certain stimulations
such as Optical illusions.

I can tell you that it was definitely an
experience and I learned quite a lot especially since I’m also taking a psychology
class and we touched upon the subject of optical illusions quite briefly. Of
the many artists that Dr. Caplovitz presented, he kept referring to much of
Hermann Grids artwork. This particular artist loved playing with the receptive
field of the eyes.

A receptive field, from what I learned
from the lecture, is how you play with the art that causes your eye to react
differently to the areas. Certain parts of the art would cause your eye to see
things that aren’t truly there. There was this one optical illusion where you
stared in the middle of a certain piece and you would then see a pink ball
rotating among a circle of green balls. Another particular piece of work was
the painting of circular snakelike images that would look like they were moving
if you looked at a certain spot. I thought that was quite interesting.

Dr. Caplovitz also stated the importance
of edges. This type of illusion gave certain pieces the illusion that there
were lines separating part of the art. There was this drawn piece that had a
tiger within it that was constructed all with black and white bars. It looked
like there was a line to give the tiger volume but in reality there wasn’t. It
was definitely trippy.

Depth was also something optical illusionist
used. It is a texture gradient that artist such as Victor Varysely and Michael
Tompset used to create a monocular depth cue. I guess it kept the eyes moving.
This artist talk was interesting and I’m glad I attended it. Optical illusion art
is definitely one of my favorites to decipher and learning about the techniques
used gives it so much more meaning than just a picture that messes with your
eyes.

I went to go check out the Beautification
Machine the other day at the Nevada Museum of Art. It was definitely an
experience and I recommend people come check it out. I didn’t expect much from
such and exhibition because the entrance wasn’t appealing. In fact, I almost
didn’t find it until I had asked a curator. The entrance to the piece was down
a hall that lead to an office so of course no one would walk down that direction.
Maybe it was part of the exhibition to hide the entrance, I don’t know.

Anyway, As I continued through the doorway
which was covered by a black cloth (also gave me reason to believe that this
wasn’t the exhibition) I was enveloped by darkness. I continued forward and to
the left and out of nowhere a magnificent sight of colors exploded before me.
It was like putting light through a crystal and everywhere I looked were prismatic
colors playfully dancing along the walls.

At first glance, It seemed to me that this
crystal protruding in the middle of the room was like something from a movie.
As if Maleficent herself would step out of the darkness and ask the mirror who
was the fairest in the land. Taking a closer look, I believe the artist
designed it as such. There were mirrors within it and disco ball of sorts spinning
in the middle of the construct. I found it quite alluring just being within the
room due to all the colors.

I then noticed that colors weren’t just
colors but snippets of news broadcast. That was quite interesting and really
made an impact on the piece. As if the world suddenly broke and the news was
trying to tell it in pieces. It kind of reminded me of Tony stark in marvel
talking to his computer.

This piece reminded me of a kaleidoscope on
the wall with all the colors and I thought it was a very interesting use of
mirrors and projection. The music made it seem as if I was in a different
dimension or like I stepped into a Doctor Who episode, maybe even star trek. I
also enjoyed the movement of the disco ball to give it the impression of being
within a circle of news.

This art was amazing and would definitely recommend
others to partake in its magnificence. My take on it, is that the artist wanted
us to be within the news and experience it all around. It touched upon sight,
sound and even touch. It was a pretty amazing experience. The funny thing about
this art was one of the viewers who had walked in talking aloud “This would be
epic if I was on drugs.” Also giving the idea that digital art and becoming a
real thing in the world of festivals and such for those who enjoy a bit of drug
use.

NatureScape

For our last and final project in Art 381, We were to create our own mini game using the program Unity.

There were no real protocol in creating a game so I decided to be ambitious and create a 3D game.It was definitely a serious project and I learned that a team of one person wouldn't be enough to create a legit game with NPC, Quests, etc. However it was definitely an awesome project to overcome and this is something I can see doing as a job or even just for fun.

For my game, I started out as just trying to get acquainted with the Unity program. I had access to 3D modeling, scripting, and creating a whole universe.

It is definitely important to stay organized when creating a project. I easily got lost sometimes trying to create simple objects such as cubes and spheres.

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After getting the hang of what I was doing (especially after the long hours of viewing tutorials) I started experimenting with the world and how I can interact with it. I knew I wanted some sort of content but with such a vase base I just didn't know where to start. I decided to just keep playing with Unity and found out how to create terrain and landscapes. It was then that I wanted to form my game. My main inspirations came from the game Alice: Madness Returns. I was thinking that maybe I would have my main character go from chaos into nature. If you were able to listen to the music I incorporated in each level, It would go from busy type music to a more calm one.

My first stage, I felt, depicted a sort of chaotic world where people can explore and learn the controls. A sort of tutorial. It had no texture just an empty sort or world where my character questions the world around her.

My next level got more detailed with textures and trees and I wanted it to seem that the world was splitting apart and becoming something more.

My final level was a full blown terrain that had my character spawn in a little village. I toiled in scripting just so that I can have an NPC give her a quest of sorts but I just wanted the player to be able to explore such an amazing landscape.

Although my game felt unfinished, if given a bit more time I would have been able to create something beautiful and meaningful. My full story would have been my main character, Cyanie, entering a coma which placed her in a chaotic world. Her quest was to learn that she had been in an accident and to leave the world to get back to reality but along the way she would discover that the chaos of her city life didn't compare to a world of nature. If I was given more time this project could have been epic but I think, for as far as I got, I accomplished a lot.

Shy Guy Surprise!

For our Second Project, we were to live action role play a game as a whole class. I thought that this project was one of the best ones that we did. The process took longer than we thought but I think our class did a pretty great job. As a whole we decided that Mario party would be the best game to bring to life since it had it's individual mini-games we could work on. My team consisted of Emma Brook, Mitch Murway, and Becca Day. We worked well together in creating our Mini-game called Shy Guy Surprise. As with our last project, we had to incorporate some type of issue that society has faced to create a greater impact if random people played or watched as others played. Our game dealt with School Shootings. We were to also cosplay during this live action role play and so we had created wearable 3D models of mario characters through a folding program called Pepakura. Here are some pictures of said models.

This picture depicts what we incorporated in our game. It lists as: a mutilated toad, Shy Guy mask, Princess Peach and Daisy crowns, Mario and Luigi hats, a Bowser shell, and a boo cutout for when someone died. I was in charge of recreating the princess crowns and it was pretty easy once I got the right pieces together. The most difficult part of this or Pepakura in itself was cutting these pieces out. That was what took the group the longest to do.

These pictures depicted where in the University we had set up our street game so that our peers could either play or observe. It was an effective spot since most people had to go in between buildings to either eat or study therefore pulling in a few people to play our game. I thought that this mutilated toad had brought the curious viewers.

Here are a few pictures of my group and I cosplaying our creation. From top to bottom: Mitch posing as mario whilst holding boo. Emma as a tiny Luigi. Finally, I in the toad outfit.

I thought that this project was way too fun. The concept was easily picked up after a game or two and people found that after understanding our game, they felt worse. I suppose that the story behind what seems like a playful game, impacts society more than we thought. Playing it in real life vs. on a computer device states more unsaid words.

Project #1: Board Game Redesign

This is an art project that my partner, Payden Thompson, and I collaborated on. Our assignment was to recreate or design a board game that people were familiar with into one that touched upon social aspects or stigmas. During the initial brainstorm, we wanted to people to learn about social ignorance or pretense of people not acknowledging what is happening in the American Country. We had both decided upon the touching subject of racism. Unfortunately racism still happens in this day and age.

Once we chose our desired topic, we brainstormed about which game we would like to attempt and redesigned. Individually we wanted to do either The Game of Life or Guess Who. We had also decided on making our broad topic specific and in that time the Global Awards were the most talked about. We came to the conclusion that we should hit upon the subject of racism in the nomination and bring to the attention of all the male white dominated awards. After that, all we had to do was decide upon which game was best suited in portraying the subject effectively. That was when we decided to recreate guess who in a way that represented the discrimination that so infamously was being conducted in the Global Awards.

We had dedicated many hours into researching how many African American and ethnic Actors/Actresses were nominated for awards and had won them. The research in itself was quite overwhelming just in uncovering how dominated it was by the white male community. After our research phase, we started construction on our table top game. Payden was in charge of recreateing the cards and painting whilst I was researching upon our nominees, retouching the rules, and creating a simple cheat sheet. It was quite the task but the most trouble we came up with was finding the plastic piece in order to recreate the game fully.

In Conclusion, after beautifully recreating the game, our classmates had given the game a go and found out much more information on racism in the Global Awards than they were aware of. They believed that the recreated game was well thought of and was executed quite well. I thought that this project was a fun way to add art, social constructs, and games all in one. In the picture below is one of the games I found really interesting and fun to play. It's a game that touches upon life after prison. It definitely set my eyes open and liked playing the game mainly because of the difficulty of getting out or prison permanently.